What Atlanta Can Teach Tech About Cultivating Black Talent

The city is rich in opportunity for African Americans, who are largely underrepresented in the industry. It’s also poised to become a hotbed for AI innovation

Troy Nunnally and Travis Nunnally, also known as “the Tech Twins,” are cofounders of Brain Rain Solutions. PHOTOGRAPH: JOSHUA RASHAAD MCFADDEN

Here are the snippets from the article that struck a chord and stood out to me:

“When I graduated in 2014, there were less than 100 black men in the whole nation with a PhD in machine learning,” Troy says. “We get scared because we don’t see anybody like us. We do see people at the top in entertainment, in sports, but we don’t see people at the top of technology.”

How can technology become more diverse and welcoming to underrepresented groups?

For example, only 2.5 percent of Google’s workforce is black, while Facebook and Microsoft are each at 4 percent.

HBCUs are responsible for educating a disproportionate number of degree-holding African American professionals in STEM and awarding close to half of all STEM degrees granted to black women in the US.

Companies haven’t been recruiting heavily for artificial-intelligence-adjacent positions from the talent pools at HBCUs.

The racial wealth gap in the United States creates a very…